European Neighbourhood
Artistania is happy to have participated in the project "European Neighbourhood" and created an extraordinary exchange with our partners Frères poussières (FR), B-Arts (GB), Kongsskogen (NORV), and Afuk (DK).
Educators and learners from across Europe met together at five of our centres/schools; created experiences, activities and events, designed to involve the people living nearby and to capture the beauty of our neighborhoods.
We aim to increase the impact and scope of lifelong learning, by creating new ways of reaching people in our local communities who are not yet engaged in informal and creative learning. We want to do this by giving our current learners the lead, working with them to design and carry out new creative informal learning activities that will appeal to our neighbors and help us all to get to know and understand one another.
We wanted to disseminate the results of these meetings in an exhibition and a website. Both online and physical spaces are curated by learners, supported by educators.
We used some tools we know; photography, sound capture, film, writing, but this is not an exhaustive list, as learners and educators were asked to contribute from their own ideas and interests.
By documenting our project activity and sharing this at an international level, we want to build up a patchwork of local experiences that reflects the diversity of European identity.
We want to counter the negative perceptions that we live in impersonal urban areas. Instead we wish to make a platform from which we can raise awareness of a culturally rich Europe and in making it, become closer Europe.
Ongoing report of the project
11-13.10-2013: First Meeting at Frères poussière in Aubervilliers:
This was a wonderful first meeting and very promising for the upcoming cooperations. We were very impressed by the lantern parade "Lumière sur la ville" and enjoyed to participate in such a beautiful event. "Lumière sur la ville" is a ambulation with self-made lanterns through the streets of Aubervilliers. During two weeks neighbours could learn and make their own lantern in the theatre of the association. The parade gathered nearly 500 citizens of Aubervilliers carrying their big and small lanterns and dancing on the sounds of the batucada in order to make their city a bit more beautiful and less anonymous. Here some impressions of the parade (photos by Fasto):
1-4.05.2014: Second meeting at B-Arts in Stoke-On Trent.
5 Members of Artistania travelled to the welcoming cultural Center „B-Arts“ and discovered the association's activities as well as facets of the British life style (i.e. we ate a lots of beans, beacon and scrambled eggs!). We learned how to make willow sculptures, to bake bread, build small transportable gardens... We participated as well to a „Community day“ and exchange handcraft knowledge with the neighbours. But most important we build knew friendships with very engaged people.
17.09-19.09.2014: Third Meeting at Kongsskogen in Oslo:
Four members of Artistania travelled till Oslo to meet the nice students and the nice teachers of the school "Kongsskogen". There we were invited to lead some workshops and exchange our knowledge.
Students and guests could worked together on:
Mental mapping
Sound and construction
Masks and theater
Portrait photography
Music (Åse/Christine)
Sculpture (Bente)
Documentation (Kristen/Hilde)...
The results were very surprising! With courage, we presented our creation in the Streets of Ensjo
Impressions of the Portrait Workshop by B-arts:
29.01-02.02.2015: Fourth Meeting at Frères Poussières in Aubervilliers:
The théâtre des Frères Poussière received members from 4 of the partner organisations around the themes: URBAN STROLLS, SOUND, SCREENPRINTING, KITCHEN... `
The purpose of this meeting was to make the participants discover the city of Aubervilliers in a playful way, and show the way we work to join durably the district / the city. Besides the activities specifically planned for the participants, certain events were also opened to the public !
It has been the best opportunity for everyone to exchange, to share, with people from different cultures.. each one as rich as the other..in a different way !!
This meeting was also the occasion for the french association to show the real face of thecity, far from the image that can be made through the various mass medias.
Here are some impressions of this meeting:
« Neighborhood is inviting someone into your house and feeding them, serving an amazing insight into your life and making them never want to leave.Neighborhood is talking to someone who doesn't speak your language for hours and understanding every single word. Neighborhood is walking back from dancing all night with new friends and old feeling like you are already home. Neighborhood is working together to create something beautiful.My neighbors transcend geographical boundaries, language barriers and religious belief. » Martin Gooding - Artist
2.03: Hoffest
Program:
*Exhibition “Neighbourhood without borders” with associations from Europe
*Exhibition “Abdrücke und Eindrücke von Bouka”
*Live painting with Thym'Art und Marengo
*Body-painting with Anja
*Batucada meets the Giant Puppets
*Felt-Workshop with Teona Härter
*Second hand with Miriam
*Fun with Arto
*Lightgraff with Fasto
* Music with Tiliboo Afrobeat
*Pizica Workshop from South Italy
*Nice food with the Roma-Vokü-Group
*Couscous with Mebrouka
29.04-1.05: Workshop: Exhibition "Neighbourhood without borders
29.04-1.05: Workshop: Voices of the Neighbourhood
We went out onto the streets of Neukolln armed with tea, cake and sweets, a pile of second hand postcards, felt tip pens and a converted shopping trolley/postbox. Asking the passers by to write a postcard to their neighbourhood.
29.04-1.05 Workshop: Batucada and Music
29.04-1.05 Workshop: Building the Giant Puppets
29.04-3.05: Fifth meeting at Artistania in Berlin
With the “European Neighbourhood” meeting and the Hoffest (courtyard festival) we wanted to raise specific questions and challenges in relation to our neighbourhoods, and specifically around gentrification, which is quite problematic in our area. Gentrification is not only an economical problem: Artist collectives like ours face a dilemma : with our work we want to make the life in the neighbourhood better, but in making it "better" we actually provoke unwanted sides effect, like the rise of the rents (and finally we are also suffering under this effects). We want to highlight this problem openly and work on possible solutions. First step of this work was the Hoffest on Saturday 2.05 where we wanted to create connections between neighbours of the Artistania Atelier and the artists involved in the association. Our partners from B-Arts, Frères Poussière, Afuk and Kongskogen with their experience helped Artistania to find ways to improve the quality of the exchange with the neighbourhood. Together we developed during 3 day an inclusive program, where everybody could participate and enjoy.
15.06-18.06: sixth meeting at AFUK in Oslo
Sixth meeting was in Copenhagen where learners and teachers worked on the first exhibtion of the European Neighbourhood project that was shown during AFUK's student's festival. The exhibition was at the center of the festival and made quite an impression on the students and the roughly 2.000 visitors. There where in particular comments on the fact, that 25 people from different countries and with very different ages and backgrounds could build a large and interesting exhibition in only three days. It was a big inspiration for the students and teachers.
